If you’re looking for a gardening and nature book that explores how the outdoors shape our lives, this is a growing list of titles I read, enjoy and recommend.
If you’re ready to turn your garden into part of the Great Ecosystem, these tips for creating wildlife ponds and gardens can help.
What I’m reading
Let’s take a look at the books I currently have on my nightstand and take a look at my past favorites. The topics interweave with gardening, nature and life. Sometimes practical, sometimes personal, and always rooted in a love for the outdoors. I continue to add new discoveries as I go.
With so many books published each year, the options can feel overwhelming. There’s not enough time to read them all! Switch between hard copy and digital copy depending on price, availability, patience and shipping costs. In the perfect world, every hard copy also comes with a digital version.
Here in Canada, the options for sourcing books are a little more limited than in the US (I’m lucky if you can access sites like bookshop.org). I often link to Amazon for convenience, but I hope you find your own way to enjoy these titles, whether it’s a local library, a friend, a bookstore, or another online source.
I’m not only sharing books I enjoyed, I’ll just rate them, along with some personal notes under “My Takes.” If the book doesn’t resonate with me, I’ll remove it from the list. After all, the reading is wonderfully subjective.
Latest Picks
Phenology (MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series)
Teresa M. Crimins
Timing of seasonal activities in plants and animals, the impacts of climate change, and what each of us can do to help as everyday phenomena phenomena scientists.
My view: I read this book all at once. It’s a relatively small book, but it’s packed with many interesting examples of phenology and the interconnectivity of nature. I think natural science should teach us from this perspective to make it very easy to understand the importance of diversity (plants and animal species).
My View: This book starts with a lovely account of Barbara’s childhood and moves to all the easy-to-read shares she knows about gardening. Our approach is very similar.
Gardening
Carol Klein
Carol Klein is one of the UK’s most beloved gardeners, and for decades gardening has been at the heart of her extraordinary life… In this highly anticipated memoir, Carol tells the story of the people, places and plants that shaped her life.
My view: I am a Carol Klein Superfan and read all of her books. She has had a great career (in male dominated fields) and has most certainly influenced many new generations of gardeners. Her skills as a teacher and communicator are very impressive, and no one likes to develop a plant name like her. Her book, Grow Your Own Garden, launched my plot with plant breeding and docusaries.
My view: I’ve never heard of this book about Joe Lamp’s podcast, The Joe Gardener Show. Joe’s own journey into ecological gardening is my own, and his choice of guests and topics is always very timely for me. Paula’s mission to naturalize her mountain property is an honorable and ambitious endeavor.
My view: I love anything that encourages us to protect, explore, and better understand the natural world that supports us. This quote from the book shares how the idea isn’t new:
I often think that the more I limit myself to smaller areas, the more novelty and discoveries I have in natural history.
– Mary Treat, Studying from Home in Nature (1885)
The Story of a Midwife: The Life of Martha Ballard based on her Diary, 1785-1812
By Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Between 1785 and 1812, a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a journal and documented her laborious work (he attended the birth of 816 years later) and her family life in Hallowell, Maine. Based on that diary, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich gives us a close, dense portrait of not only the hardworking and silent Martha Ballard, but also her society. Academically, quickly becoming vibrant, midwife stories are the triumph of history on a human scale.
My view: This book may seem off topic here, but that’s not really the case. There are interesting mentions that gardening and food are growing throughout the journal entries of this book. I found a story about Martha’s life being intriguing (and surprising) as a midwife, and I picked up all sorts of garden bites along the way. One of the interests was the mention of regrowing cabbage from stem cuttings.
It has been introduced previously
The list continues here: Recommended Garden Books.
If you have a book you like, let us know!
~Melissa Empress of the Defiled
